Warship Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2019: The Russians Aren’t Good at Borrowing Ships

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1946 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2019: The Russians Aren’t Good at Borrowing Ships

IWM Photo. Colorized photo by Atsushi Yamashita/Monochrome Specter http://blog.livedoor.jp/irootoko_jr/

Here we see the Royal Navy R-class battleship HMS Royal Sovereign (05), resplendent in her peacetime livery, entering the Grand Harbor of Malta, sometime in the 1920s. Born in the Great War, she would give hard service to the Empire across four decades only to end up as one of the most unpleasant early tales of WWII alliances chilling in the new Cold War.

The R-class of superdreadnoughts was designed in the days leading up…